There are seasonal ikebana arrangements, tatami-mat flooring, kimono-style outfits for guests and a steaming hot onsen spring water bath.
So far, so ryokan, the traditional-style Japanese inns that dot the country. Until a screen slides open in one of the guestrooms, and 11th-floor views of ...

Gabriel Orozco has returned to Tokyo. Following his retrospective "Inner Circles" at the Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo in early 2015, "Visible Labor" at Rat Hole Gallery is a collection of new works that explore Orozco's classic themes of the city, transportation and games, ...

This show runs concurrent with Gabriel Orozco's solo show at the Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo, his first large-scale exhibition in Japan. During his recent stay here, Orozco created a new series of works titled "Visible Labor," featuring pieces inspired by Japanese architecture and ...

Once every century, Hirosaki in Aomori Prefecture experiences an unusual event — the Hirosaki Moving Castle Project — when the city relocates an entire castle using manpower only.
This year is that 100th year, and from Sept. 20 to 27, more than 3,200 travelers gathered ...

Nov. 7-Jan. 31
The 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami left its mark on all who live in or are connected to Japan, including many of the country's architects. The destruction it caused made many realize that there are times when, no matter how ...

As my smartphone clock flashes from 11:59 a.m. to 12 p.m., I watch the visitors to Kawagoe, in Saitama Prefecture wipe the sweat from their foreheads and direct their attention toward a more primitive form of time keeping — the Toki no Kane (Bell ...

When we were thinking of buying a condominium, we visited several old danchi — apartments built by Japan's former public housing corporation — because they were cheap and, we thought, easy to renovate. One of the units we inspected had bedroom floors made of ...

If someone were to tell you that the largest private collection of New York street and pop artist Keith Haring's work is stashed in some of Japan's lushest mountainous countryside, and if you went to visit it, you could stay in a Keith Haring-inspired ...

Since 2011, Tokyo University of the Arts and the city of Hokuto in Yamanashi Prefecture have been working together to redesign its Kobuchizawa Station building as part of an initiative to breathe new life into the rural area.
Local citizens were involved through numerous workshops ...

'Whenever I see the alcove of a tastefully built Japanese room, I marvel at our comprehension of the secrets of shadows, our sensitive use of shadow and light," wrote the prominent modern novelist Junichiro Tanizaki in his 1933 essay on Japanese aesthetics, "In Praise ...